BREAKING NEWS 6/29/18

Within 90 seconds of a mass shooting at an Annapolis newspaper The Capital Gazette, police responded, and apprehended the suspect, Jarrod Ramos, who killed five people. Ramos had sued the newspaper in 2012 for defamation.

In response, President Trump tweeted, "Congrats for someone finally doing something about fake news. #MAGA!". Asked for a comment,  Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told reporters, "Don't blame me. I told people to go after people in the Trump administration!" Meanwhile, a press release from the National Rifle Association congratulated the police for their swift response, adding, "That's the good thing about having so many mass shootings. It gives law enforcement plenty of training the next time they happen!"

Russell Walker, the winning GOP candidate for the 48th House District of North Carolina, says that both he and God are white supremacists, Jews are descended from Satan, refers to Martin Luther King, Jr. as a "coon", and that the war on drugs needs to be abolished because it targets the poor.

The local Republican Party withdrew its support for Walker by stating, "Ending the war on drugs is heresy."



By recruiting  entrepreneurs to run local deliveries, as well as acquiring online

pharmacy PillPack, Amazon wiped out $17.5 billion in the value of FedEx, UPS and five pharmaceutical chains in just one day. 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told reporters, "If those companies had only subscribed to Amazon Prime, they'd have saved $5-billion!"

Germany's intelligence service, BND, acknowledged today that it had employed the daughter of top Nazi Heinrich Himmler, Gudrun, in the 1960s, although she never renounced her father or Nazism, and remained active in far-right extremism.

Explaining why Gudrun was hired, a BND spokesman said, "Hitler didn't have any kids."

During an interview with Stephen Colbert, activist/moviemaker Michael Moore said people "have to put their bodies on the line" to stop President Trump.

"And when I do it," he added, "I'll be able to stop his entire cabinet along with their immediate families and first cousins!"






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BREAKING NEWS: 6/27/18

During an interview on The Daily Show with Trever Noah, former president Bill Clinton said that "a lot of poison has been poured down America's throat" since Donald Trump's election.

Clinton added, "At least what I poured down women's throats had a little protein."

Former Grey's Anatomy star Katherien Heigl apologized for posting what many people thought were disrespectful selfies taken at a graveyard.

Heigl explained, "I was only looking for my career".

Hilarie Cash, PhD., co-founder of the rehab center ReStart, says most video game addicts are underweight or overweight, have rotted teeth, poor hygiene, and are unable to cook, clean, or make their bed.

"And what's even worse," Cash said, "you can't tell them apart from most single men."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina running her first campaign, ousted 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in New York's 14th congressional district on Tuesday. Observers credited her win to her sincerity, speaking her mind directly, and not taking voters for granted.

Asked if she agreed, Hillary Clinton said, "I don't understand what they're talking about."

Ryan Shock, the mayor of Leith, North Dakota is considering dissolving the town council in order to prevent a takeover by white supremacists.

President Trump tweeted, "Glad I live in Washington where I'm welcome!"




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BREAKING NEWS: 6/23/18

In League City, Texas, police officer Jason Carty helped deliver a stranger's baby in the parking lot of AMOCO Federal Credit Union.

AMOCO officials congratulated Carty, and charged the mother 5.9% interest on the parking space.

In the lead-up to Paul Simon's farewell concert in Queens, fans have been advised to study the list of over 50 items they are forbidden to bring to the venue, including knives.

"However," spokesman Brad Lanes told reporters, "Mr. Simon always welcomes knives carried by plastic surgeons."

Following successful bladder surgery, actress Jada Pinkett Smith said in an interview that, while she's 46, her vagina "is a 16 year-old".

"Meaning," she added, "it stays out all night, has zero self-control, and is as interesting as a baloney sandwich."

Joe Jackson, the father and manager of the Jackson 5, is reportedly on his deathbed due to an undisclosed illness.

Jackson was quoted as saying that he's not ready to go, since he has so many grandchildren to exploit for financial gain.

Donald Trump, Jr. and  Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle have taken their relationship public by appearing in New York at a party for Metropolitan magazine.  

They next plan to vacation in Texas so they can partake in Austin's legendary music scene, visit the Alamo, and help take Mexican children away from their parents.






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STRICTLY ON BACKGROUND, PT. 21: "SHADES OF BLUE"

After a pretty good run of screen time, I had a dry spell. Either I was too far from the camera or my scene was cut.

 That changed this week when the second season of Shades of Blue aired -- even if it took over a year after the episode was filmed.

We were shooting on a subway train in an abandoned station near the Lower East Side. The subway signs inside and out were changed for the show to read Flushing Avenue, a non-existent Manhattan stop. (The MTA must have a rule about having to use phony subway signs; Louie did the same thing. Pity the poor TV fan who comes to New York expecting to follow in his favorite TV stars' shoes.)

We were given the set-up: star Jennifer Lopez, playing an undercover cop, is pursuing a perp into the subway station and on to the train. A young guy and I were placed on the car where Lopez was to walk between us. We did at least seven takes, with the subway train moving into the tunnel before reversing each time.

I might be wrong, but I think this is the last time
Jennifer Lopez willingly brushes past me.

We were shooting the scene out of sequence, so that Lopez's entrance inside the station -- at, as I recall, the real Houston Street stop -- was filmed next. (There were real riders there, many of whom mistook Lopez's look-alike stand-in for the real deal.) Later that evening, we shot outside the abandoned station.

When Shades of Blue finally aired, my brief appearances outside the subway station and in the entrance were nowhere to be found -- not that you would have recognized me anyway (I was walking away from the camera). But inside the train was a different thing.

Reverse angle: The guy's marveling at my ability to
carry around so many chins without falling over.

Once again, my lucky Fedora came through for me; I appear three times in the brief sequence. Yet it's a shock to see how old I look. At least when I appeared on Blacklist, I was supposed to look terrible.

So was it worth the year-long wait? Of course! Any time I get on camera is worth the wait, even if I do need the help of a mortician's make-up box. If I look like that again, I'm going to turn shades of green.

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The video clip of my scene. The first shot, where Jennifer Lopez leaves her car and walks toward the station, was filmed last. The next shot, where she walks down the stairs and  hops the turnstile, is the real Houston Street station. From that point on, we're in the abandoned station.

CAGEY DAYS

If you can't trust this guy...

Thanks to our spiritual leaders in the current administration, we now are aware of the Bible passage that reads, If the children of illegals offend thee, pluck them out of their parents' arms. And, lo, drop them in cages of metal, where they may cry and shiver for the misdeeds of the mother and father. 

Is cage too strong a word? Apparently so, according to Fox News' yolk-for-brains Steve Doocy. The kids, he informs us, are actually in "a great, big warehouse facility where they built walls out of chain link fences". 

The Dooce might have consulted with border patrol agents who admitted to CBS News that they are cages but -- and this is important -- the kids aren't being treated like animals. So can we please put that canard to rest?

"Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I'm hunting children!"

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- the man Elmer Fudd would have been if he'd been born in Alabama and leaned toward a theocratic rule of law -- had to defend himself against charges that seizing children from illegals was comparable to Nazi behavior. 

Now, comparing anything in America to Nazis is always dicey. But leave it to the guy named after Jefferson Davis and whose middle name really is Beauregard to teach us a Trump-like history lesson: "Well, it's a real exaggeration. In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country." Kind of the way kidnappers keep captives from leaving by locking them up in concentration camps and gassing them, you cornpone moron.

But forget about all that. We know that caging kids who are here through no volition of their own is acceptable because, according to Jeff, the Bible tells us so. Just like it tells us, "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him." 

Hey, at least the grown men are spared. Unless they fall into this list of 28 people who the Bible sees fit to die. Oh man, do I want to see our Attorney General defend someone who murdered his kids because they were "disobedient". 

Who wants to smack him in the face first?

We shouldn't be too hard on Jeff, though. He's merely following the orders of Stephen Miller, who got his job as Trump's senior advisor due to his uncanny resemblance to Vladimir Putin and Josef Goebbels. Miller is the driving force behind Operation: Offend Everybody, which has been so successful that it's riled up Ted Cruz, who didn't care that Trump called his wife ugly.

Yet for all his hard-right goosestepping bravado, Miller appears to share one vitally important trait with liberal Democrat Anthony Weiner. They likely got their asses repeatedly kicked in high school because they looked (and probably behaved) like assholes. But while Weiner took revenge in adulthood by sexting adolescent girls, Miller seems to have decided, "OK, I'll show you what a real asshole is!"

President Barack Obama used to have a habit of dismissing actions he didn't approve of with the proclamations "This is not who we are" or "This is not the way the world works." This intellectually-naïve attitude continues today in regard to children locked in cages: "This is not what America is." 

Yes. It. Is. Watch the news -- that's not CGI on your TV screen, so you might as well get used to it. As it says in Hebrews 13:17, "Obey your leaders and submit to them." Kneel before the Holy Trinity of Trump, Miller, and Sessions: the Adulterous Father, the Son of a Bitch, and the Holy Old Goat.

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HOLLYWOOD, D.C.

Two  authoritarians walk on to a stage...

There are many reasons to dislike President Trump. For me, it's because every time he opens his mouth, he sounds like a five year-old with brain encephalitis trying to recite passages from Troilus and Cressida.

Perfectly reasonable, articulate Congressional Democrats like Tim Ryan, Tulsi Gabbard, Beto O'Rourke, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Jack Reed have the ability to explain to wavering Trump supporters why their guy isn't working for their best interest -- dismantling environmental laws; breaking promises regarding infrastructure and better healthcare; stacking his Cabinet with the same crooks and liars he promised to get rid of; insulting leaders of democracies while feeling up dictators --  and, as they do so, never talking down to them.

"Four score and seven fuckin' years ago..."

Their skill and thoughtfulness, of course, make them anathema to so-called progressives, who instead insult potential converts, while turning to pithy one-liners with punchlines like "Fuck Trump" and "feckless cunt". They've apparently mistaken "When they go low, we go high" for "When they go low, we get a solar-powered steamshovel and start digging further". This kind of stuff makes a wide swath of Americans between New York and Los Angeles think, Oh yeah, that's why I hate Hollywood. Thanks for reminding me! 

Despite what their fans think, it took zero courage for Robert De Niro and Samantha Bee to say what they did in rooms filled with people who were already in their pocket. For real profiles in comedy courage, I direct you to the Smothers Brothers and Lenny Bruce, who lived in a time when real political wit drove them off the air and into an early grave respectively. 

This kind of brilliant artwork should elect
a president, alright.

So it's both shocking and totally understandable to see this headline on Politico: DEMOCRATS TURN TO HOLLYWOOD FOR MESSAGING HELP. 

Naturally! Why go with the men and women with an ability to connect to voters when you can instead live up to your own negative stereotypes, and leave yourself wide open to ridicule by getting your talking points from sitcom writers? To quote Politico, In one recent meeting, a Midwestern senator sought advice about how to discuss gun control with conservative-leaning voters in his or her state. 

In other words, instead of crafting their own ideas -- i.e., using their brains -- they're outsourcing their job to Veep. One producer claims they're going to get their message out because they know how to create movie posters. You know, advertisements that airbrush images to remove any sign of reality, and deliberately mislead you into thinking it's one thing when it's really something else.  

The idea that most excites them, however, has nothing to do with one-sheets or lobby cards:

In one of the group’s first projects, members are working to find young celebrities who might post videos of themselves registering to vote. Targets include stars of the TV comedy “Black-ish” and celebrities with ties to Puerto Rico. The group is also discussing a college campus voter registration drive that would include some kind of VIP concert or other experience for students who register large numbers of voters.

Remember the last time they did something like this? It was the 2016 presidential election. Leave it Hollywood to once again create a sequel to a product nobody wanted the first time around. 

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BREAKING NEWS: 6/6/18

Fashion accessory designer Kate Spade committed suicide in her Upper East Side apartment at the age of 55, allegedly due to her husband wanting a divorce.

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "As we've explained several times already, there was no collusion between President Trump and Miss Spade."

At least 25 people have been killed in Guatemala by the explosion from one of Central America's most active volcanoes, Volcan de Fuego.

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "I refer you back to our statement regarding the volcano in Hawaii."

Chip and Joanna Gaines, hosts of HGTV's Fixer Upper, have agreed to pay a $40,000 fine for breaking strict rules regarding removing lead paint during home remodels.

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "We consider this another example of government over-reach, since the science isn't settled on the so-called dangers of lead paint."

U.S. and other allied troops have joined veterans of the D-Day invasion and families of fallen soldiers to mark 74 years since the massive military operation that changed the course of World War II. 

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "This is just another example of countries refusing to carry their fair share of our economic burden when it comes to foreign aid."

An audience in Kentucky cheered when class valedictorian Ben Bowling shared an inspirational quote he initially credited to Donald Trump. When the applause subsided, Bowling explained that it was really spoken by Barack Obama, leaving the audience silent.

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "As we've explained before, President Trump really did say those words, and is demanding an apology."

After saying that businesses should be able to turn away customers based on their race, South Dakota Rep. Michael Clark said, "I would never advocate discriminating against people based on their race."

Asked if the White House had a comment regarding the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders told reporters, "Pres. Trump is happy to announce that Michael Clark has what it takes to become our new assistant press secretary."

                                                        

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